A Platform for our Future

Andrew Brown
Aug 24, 2017 · 4 min read

Originally published February 21st, 2021.

Education

In today’s world, quality education is available from a myriad of sources outside of the traditional public and private education. My primary goal as your President will be to reform our current education system into a more adaptive and personalized system that allows anyone, anywhere, to receive a quality, recognized, and free education online or in person, at their own pace, from preschool to higher education.

Prisons

Our prison system is expensive, inefficient, and outdated. As a society, we should be doing more to reform criminals than just housing them in cells and babysitting them. Norway’s prison readmission rates within 5 years are the lowest in the world at 16% (compared to our 77%, the highest in the world), and I believe we can take inspiration from them while molding the experience into one that also exemplifies the American values we hold dear.​

Specifically, virtual reality holds promise in new methods of rehabilitation and counseling. I would like to allocate funds to research and develop new virtual reality technologies tailored to reforming our nation’s criminals, and offer grants to prisons willing to put better rehabilitation systems in place.

Space Travel

The human race is ready to establish itself as an interplanetary species, and I believe the benefits of colonizing Mars in the long run will pay for a vastly increased NASA budget and annual grants to private companies making positive headway in the space. I also intend to increase funding for research on Mars-specific systems such as infrastructure, agriculture, politics, and automation.​

Automation

Physical automation is necessary for a post-scarcity world, and only makes our life (on Earth or any planet) easier on the way. I would like to allocate funds to research the implications of mass job automation before it occurs, but also begin to offer businesses minor tax breaks as they purchase large automation machinery.

Basic Income

As our fully-automated society comes into place, we will likely see a vast majority of traditional jobs fall to the wayside. To combat mass unemployment and poverty, I propose a basic income system offering monthly stipends at minimum wage to the unemployed, with additional wages offered to those contributing to the public good (voting, volunteering, etc).

National Security

When it comes to balancing security and privacy, we should err on the side of security, not only for the safety of our citizens from foreign threats as we scale down our oversized military budget, but also to take advantage of domestic benefits that can be afforded to citizens when protectors better know those they’re protecting.​

There is a large stigma around the government’s collection and use of metadata currently due to its inherent lack of transparency, but I believe that a system that is more transparent and provides checks and balances set forth by the public can be both beneficial to security and to all citizens.

Foreign Security

Our world’s reliance on technology and infrastructure means for the first time in history we can begin to think about peaceful methods of warfare designed to disable malicious systems, rather than destroy. We need to lead the future’s cyber warfare race, and in order to do that we need strong hackers and cyber warriors who can completely disable foreign infrastructure and systems that pose a threat to our great country.

In addition to a massive shift to cyber warfare, I propose we massively scale back our boots on the ground initiatives and massively increase funding for drones, robotics, and other unmanned hardware.

Drug Policies

The “War on Drugs” has been one of our most expensive civil wars in history. Rather than prosecuting substance abuse criminally, these substances should be controlled, taxed, and made available to adults from designated retailers, rather than the streets.

In addition to taking control of controlled substances and immediately removing marijuana and hemp from the list of dangerous substances, I also propose freeing all nonviolent soft drug offenders who never should have been incarcerated in the first place. Nonviolent users of heavier drugs should be offered the same treatment, pending the completion of rehabilitation and counseling. Heavy drug use should be treated as a public health issue, rather than a criminal one, and treated accordingly.

Voting

In an increasingly-more-connected world, our archaic voting system struggles to keep up. Potential voters are still prevented from voting in many ways, and — even worse — many just don’t care.

A technology-first direct democracy empowers our people to make change happen. I want to allocate funds for research on secure and guaranteed voting technologies on the blockchain, while scaling down politicians and letting the people vote directly on the issues that matter most to them from the ease of their local polling booth, desktop, tablet, or phone.

Additionally, I want to impose a Sunset clause on all new laws passed going forward, requiring a re-vote every 10–20 years in order for them to remain in effect. Change happens fast (and will only happen faster), and our legal system needs to be ready to adapt to anything the future throws at it.

Immigration

We are all one species, united by ideas and cultures that span many races, beliefs, and values. I firmly believe we can all coexist peacefully and without issue within a system that values communication, collaboration, and different ideas.​

To this end, I propose an open borders policy that welcomes all who embrace our core values of peace and love, and offers a straightforward path that leads to full citizenship within 5 years.

The Island of Totec

The island of our future

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Andrew Brown

Written by

An author—of literature and code.

The Island of Totec

The island of our future

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